


So Much, So Suddenly

by gnimaerd



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 16:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8021530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnimaerd/pseuds/gnimaerd
Summary: Post Run-Away Dinosaur episode tag, what should have happened between Barry and Iris that evening after visiting his mother’s grave, after Barry has a chance to process Iris’s confession and his own mortality.





	So Much, So Suddenly

They sit on the couch in the West home and they try to make excuses to Wally about where Barry has been and what the hell has been going on (none of which Wally buys, of course). And when Wally is done rolling his eyes at them he goes to bed, so does Joe, and Iris and Barry are left alone on the couch.

They should both go home. Barry should run Iris back to hers and then go back to his, and get some sleep because Zoom is coming and some kind of meta-human war is brewing on the streets of Central City, and Barry will need whatever rest he can get right now.

But neither of them move – except for when Iris folds herself into Barry’s side with a slow, soft exhalation of breath, like she’s sinking into a warm bath at the end of a long day. She lays her head on his shoulder, her breath warm against his neck, and all thoughts of home and sleep and sensible, realistic plans for the night blink out of Barry’s head like a switch got flicked in his mental fuse box.

He couldn’t move right now if he wanted to.

Instead he wraps an arm around Iris’s shoulders, anchoring her close and safe against him, and watches as she draws her knees up so they rest on his thigh. One of her hands comes to grasp the front of his shirt –her fingers curl over the top of his collar, her thumb tucks between two buttons so he can almost feel the tip against his bare skin.

The silence deepens. Above, they can hear Joe moving around, getting into bed, water running somewhere that might be Wally in the bathroom. Outside, the occasional car drifts past – distantly there’s a dog barking, and beyond that, if Barry concentrates, he can pick up the broader sounds of populace, ever restless, whatever storm Zoom is concocting brewing like a thunder cloud under the city’s skin.

But in here, with Iris, in this house on this couch, the silence is soft as a blanket, seems to have wrapped them up in something else, taken them away somewhere that’s just their own.

“Hey,” Barry whispers, feeling like a kid in church, like if he lifts his voice any further he might break this, whatever it is.

“Hey,” Iris tilts her head back just a little to look up at him.

Barry lets his eyes flick across her face for a moment, careful, curious. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Her hand tightens on his shirt, “is this okay?”

For a moment he’s not sure what she’s asking – and then he realises that she means _this_ , here, cuddling up to him on the couch and breathing into his neck and holding onto the collar of his shirt like she’s worried someone’s going to pry him away from her. Because it’s not like they’ve never cuddled before, it’s not like she’s never laid her head on his shoulder or let him wrap his arms around her but – well. Given everything… this is new. And neither of them really know where the lines are now and…

“Yeah – yes, of course,” he tells her, because god it’s more than okay. He must grip her shoulder a little tighter because he feels her respond before he’s aware he’s doing it, her whole body settling against him like sand, her free hand touching the back of his where it’s resting on her arm.

“Good.” Her smile is quick, flickering, nervous – and it strikes Barry that he has never really seen her like this before –so wrong-footed, feeling her way around something, toward something (toward him).

And before he can lose his nerve, because Zoom is out there somewhere and Barry has almost died once already this week – Barry slips his other arm under Iris’s legs and pulls her into his lap. And he only manages it because she goes with him, immediately, wraps both arms around his neck, rearranges herself as if they do this all the time, as if she’s spent every evening of her life in his lap and this isn’t a new, terrifying boundary they’re both testing.

Barry tries to work out what to do with his hands – settles of keeping them at her waist – and looks into Iris’s face again, his heart rate kicking against his ribs.

“Is this okay?” he’s trying for teasing, even sardonic, because he has to say something now, doesn’t he? But it just comes out kinda choked and quiet.

Iris only nods, anyway, her smile still that flickering, nervous expression he can’t get used to. Barry can feel her fingers plucking at his collar round the back of his neck as she presses her face into his shoulder. He tries to concentrate on keeping his breath even, on holding her, because she seems to want to be held, to be comforted – and Barry can do that, he can reassure her that he’s here, that she never really lost him, she doesn’t have to worry. He wants to be calm for her, steadying, safe. But every nerve ending in his body is prickling with the weight and the heat of her in his arms.

He’d put all hope of this – any of it – aside months ago, let her slide away from his thoughts, tried so hard, with Patty, to pretend that there could be other girls, that he didn’t need Iris to be his alpha and omega points – but that all feels completely stupid now.

Who in the hell was he kidding?

He’s never felt anything close to this before, not with any other girl. He never wants to.  

Barry is transfixed by the sliver of skin showing where Iris’s top has ridden up away from the waistband of her jeans – where he could touch her, if he wanted to, because right now he knows without a doubt that she’d let him.

It’s all so much so suddenly that he feels a little electrocuted by it all.

(And he has actually been electrocuted in grand style in the very recent past so he knows what he’s talking about).

“Iris,” he swallows, smoothing his hand down her back, feeling the heat of her skin through the fabric of her top. He takes a breath, dares himself, trails his fingers back up to the nape of her neck and touches her there, stroking aside the loose strands of hair.

Iris’s grip on his collar tightens. “Bear.”

Barry manages a shakey gasp of laughter to meet her tentative smile, before he steals himself for what he has to say next. “Do you… do you really wanna do this? Now?”

Iris blinks at him for a moment, “…this?”

“I mean…” Barry swallows, scrambling for words, all of which have of course scattered away from him because he’s a bag of nerves and maybe he shouldn’t be trying to have this talk while she’s still actually in his lap – why is he trying to have this talk at all? When he could just sit on the couch and hold her for as long as she wants to be held, and stroke her back and marvel at how this is all possible, all of a sudden, and not interrupt that like an idiot?

“I just mean, Zoom’s out there right now, about to bring down one hell of a fight and…” Barry takes a breath, “it’s dangerous – he’s dangerous – this is all… do you want to do this now?” _When I could die_ , he doesn’t add, though he can see her hear it in his tone of voice anyway

“Barry…” Iris shakes her head, her smile slow and sad and soft. She’s close enough that Barry could count all her eyelashes if he wanted to – and he wants to, god. He wants to lay her down on the couch, lay on top of her and kiss her neck and stroke her hair and whisper nice things to her all night, until her smile has stopped being so sad. He could do that. He could do that right now, she’d let him – she’d enjoy it.

“I just don’t want you to lose me,” Barry murmurs, glancing away from her so he can say it, not sure he can bare her expression otherwise. “You’ve lost enough. I can’t cause you any more pain.”

“Well,” and then her fingers are under his chin, pulling him firmly back to look at her. “You just better make sure I don’t lose you then, huh?”

She’s stroking his cheek with her thumb, and Barry makes himself meet her gaze – then swallows his courage. He catches her registering what he’s about to do before he does it, sees her eyes flutter closed a moment before he closes his – finds her mouth brushing against his own just tentatively, softly, even as her fingers tighten on his shirt and hold him there.

It’s different from the first time. That kiss was a desperate, chaotic crush, passionate and frightened, a rush – like the tidal wave coming up on them from the harbour. This one is soft, slow and quiet – considered. They’ve got a little time now, after all.

And when they part, Iris’s smile isn’t sad at all anymore.


End file.
